Requiem lowered me to the chair by the stage and lifted the reserved sign off the seat before I sat on it. I forgot to smooth my skirt down in back until I touched the cold chair. I had to sit up enough to smooth it down and not put my bare cookies on a chair that someone else would have to sit on later. Just politeness. But my eyes never left the stage.
Nathaniel did push-ups, then his hips dropped lower, and his body came up, and he did a movement that managed to look like he was fucking the stage, and at the same time, was a bigger movement than that, like a wave that went from his head to his feet. Over and over again, until the women in the audience were almost hysterical. A woman two chairs to my right was pulling down her blouse, flashing her breasts at him.
He crawled across the stage in that way that the wereanimals had, as if they had muscles in places that humans didn't. It was graceful and dangerous, and utterly sensual, as he slinked on all fours toward the end of the stage.
From the back, with his legs tight together, he looked nude. He laid his head on the floor, and the ponytail of his auburn hair spilled out around him like a cloak. He stayed that way for a moment, in a tight ball that looked so terribly nude. Then the music changed and his head flew up, his hair spilling in an arc through the air like a shining spray of colored water, until it fell around his back, and I realized that he had it up in a high, tight ponytail. So that the hair bounced and moved with him. He used it like it was a piece of costume, to hide his body, to peek pale flesh through it, then to swirl it around him so that the hair itself was the show for a moment, then he began to do that sensuous crawl around the stage, and people began to put money in the thin strap of his G-string. There was already a pile of money at the far end of the stage, as if he'd been getting it all along, but only now was he letting them slip the bills in so close to his body.
One woman pulled on the G-string, pulling it away from his body, and he cupped his hand over the front of him, to hide, and I almost got up. Almost rode to his rescue, but he didn't need to be rescued. He kissed her, and she let him move her hand away from his clothes and sat back like he'd stunned her. He joked and chastised and flowed through their hands like muscled water. He was always almost close enough, but never quite where they reached, if they were reaching where they shouldn't have.
I watched the other women, and the one or two men, and I felt something. Lust, I think, it was lust, but it was as if their lust was solid enough to grab, to pull out of the air itself and wrap around my body like a coat. Jean-Claude's voice whispered through my head, " Ma petite, do you want to know how to feed on their lust, to feed without touching?"
"You know I do," I whispered.
And it was like before with Primo, it was as if he stepped inside my skin almost, so that I suddenly knew what he knew. I knew how to open myself up and pull in the thick air. It wasn't like breathing, and it wasn't like feeding when I touched someone, it was closer to literally pulling at the air with metaphysical hands and dragging the lust hand over hand and pulling it inside me. It was the oddest sensation, as if the lust were silk or satin and I pulled it inside my body, as if silk scarves could pass through a hole in my skin. The sensation felt like I'd made a wound in my body and was pulling things through that wound. It was a sensation just this side of pain.
Jean-Claude's voice in my head, "It will not be so uncomfortable when you have practiced it."
"It feels awful."
"But are you feeding?" he asked.
I had to think about it, because all my attention was on how disturbing it felt to draw the lusts of strangers inside me. But once I thought about it, I realized I was feeding. I felt less cold than I had, but... "Do you ever fill up this way?"
"It keeps one from starving, but it is not a meal, no."
I don't know what I would have said to that, because suddenly Nathaniel was in front of me. I think he was repeating himself, but I hadn't heard him the first time. "I said, do you want to come play with the kitty?"
Jean-Claude was gone from my head, and I'd stopped feeding from the audience. Everything just shut down, everything but the lavender eyes staring at me from the edge of the stage. His hand was held out. Women's voices were calling, "I'm not shy... pick me, if she doesn't want to go. Brandon, Brandon, she doesn't want you, but I do..."
I put my hand in his, but I made a face to show just how uneasy this whole thing made me. I didn't like to dance where strangers, or even friends, could see me. Being dragged on stage at a strip club was so far beyond my comfort level. Until that moment, I hadn't really thought about what it would mean to mark him tonight. On stage, in front of people. Eek!
I stumbled going up on the stage, because I remembered the short skirt and the lack of anything under it, so I was very ladylike getting up on stage. Trouble was the stage was too high from the floor to be that ladylike, so I stumbled, and he caught me and gave me a look. That look gave me a last refuge. That look said, If you can't do this, I'll let it go. He would have, too, but I also knew that if it wasn't me, it was going to be someone else. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how I felt about watching him get pawed, or paw another woman. The fact that I thought flaunting myself up on stage would be a lesser evil than watching someone else flaunt themselves at Nathaniel, said clearly that my priorities had become skewed.
They'd brought a chair up on stage, and I hadn't seen it. The money was missing from his G-string, I think he'd put it with the pile at the end of the stage. I hadn't seen that either, which meant that I'd missed some of the act while I was feeding off the audience.
He led me to the chair and sat me down in it with a flourish of his arm. I looked up at him and knew that the look on my face was suspicious. It said clearly, What are you going to do to me?
He laughed, and it was that full-throated laugh that turned his face from handsome to something younger, more innocent , for lack of a better word. I valued that laugh, because I didn't get to hear it often. If me sitting here like this made him feel that good, then it just couldn't be that bad.
He put a hand on the back of the chair on either side of my shoulders, leaning his face very close into mine. I could see the eyeliner around his lavender eyes now and realized that there was mascara there, too, not a lot, but his eyes didn't need a lot to go from beautiful to freaking amazing. "You're not allowed to touch me, and I'm only allowed limited contact with you, but your hands need to stay on the chair most of the time." His lips showed the shadow of the smile that gleamed in his eyes.
I don't know what I would have said to that, because the music came up, or maybe it just began, and he started to dance. It had been spectacular enough from the edge of the stage, up this close, it passed from spectacular to embarrassing. It didn't matter that I slept with him almost every night, or that I'd seen him more nude than this more than once. It mattered only that it was in public, and I didn't know what to do.
He started by writhing over me with his hands still on the back of the chair. His chest was so close to my face that it was harder not to have my lips touch him, than to touch him. I'd seen him use his body before, but not like this. It was as if every muscle from shoulder to groin was capable of moving independently, and he was using every one of them. It was amazing, and in private I would have told him so, but here and now, I blushed.
He sat in my lap with his legs wide around the chair, his hands still on the back of it. If he'd just sat, I could have handled it, but of course he didn't. He moved his hips around my lap, like he was stirring something, but the movement didn't stop at the hips, it danced up his body, so that it was a bigger movement and more of the crowd could see it, as if there was any doubt what he was pantomiming.
My face was hot, as if my skin would burn if you touched it.
He leaned in against my hair, where I'd hidden my face, and whispered, "I'll stop and pick someone else if it's too much."
I raised up enough to meet his eyes. "Pick someone else?" I said.
"The act doesn't change," he whispered, "just who's on stage.
" The smile was gone from his eyes. He was serious again. I'd killed the smile in his face, or my embarrassment had. God.
I touched his face, cupped the edge of his cheek against my hand. I looked into those suddenly serious eyes, while the music beat and pulsed around us. In that moment there was no crowd. There was nothing but his face and my decision. I forgot the people, forgot that I was supposed to be embarrassed, forgot everything but that I wanted him to smile again.
"No, don't pick anyone else. I'll try. I'll really try."
He gave me that flash of smile that I'd only recently known he had in him, and he dropped to his knees in front of me. His hands played lightly on my knees, and he began to spread my legs apart, but he was still dancing to the music, even on his knees, and he saw the problem before the rest of the audience did.
He put his body between my knees and leaned in enough to say, "You're not wearing anything."
I had to smile at the almost surprised embarrassment on his face. It was nice to know that he could be embarrassed. "Nope," I said.
He laughed again, and raised up high on his knees, his hands on the back of the chair again. He thrust against me, not touching, but it must have looked worse to the audience, because they yelled and screamed and began to throw money onto the stage.
He didn't so much fall down my body, as spill down it, again that sense of liquid grace that the wereanimals had when they wanted to. He ended with his face in my lap, across the stretched fabric of the skirt, his upper body actually hiding the rest of me from the audience. The skirt had ridden up enough that everyone knew I was wearing black lace thigh-highs. His hands traced up my hose, above the boots, across my knees, and up my thighs, until his fingers came to the edge of the lace.
His fingers traced just above the lace, played along the bare skin of my thighs. He turned his head in my lap, just enough so that his lips were close to my bare thigh, and he kissed the inside of my thigh. That one small touch made me shudder, and close my eyes in a sigh.
He was up while my eyes were closed, hands putting my knees together so when his body moved, I wasn't flashing anyone. He danced behind me, and suddenly his hair feel over my face and body like an auburn waterfall. I was suddenly drowning in the vanilla scent of his hair.
He whirled around me, touching me only with his hair, then he had my hand in his and pulled me hard and fast out of the chair, so that I was forced against his body. It was like a move in a dance but more forceful, if you wanted your partner to stay on her feet. If he hadn't caught me, I might have fallen, but his body was there, and my hands were on that body, I couldn't help it. I just caught myself with his arm and chest, but the sight of me touching him like that sent more money onto the stage, and raised the frenzy of the women grouped around the stage.
His other hand had gone to the back of my skirt and tugged it down. He made it look like he was taking liberties when it was the exact opposite. Whatever they thought he was doing, they liked it.
The music had slowed, changed, and he was suddenly dancing with me. It was almost a waltz, and he did three quick turns across the stage, and we were back at the chair. He used my hand to whip me out from his body and have me facing the back of the chair. He put my hands on the curved back of the chair, then put his body as close to mine as he could. He was close enough that I could feel the tightness of him pressing against the back of my skirt.
He whispered against my hair, "This would be easier if you were wearing underwear."
I started to turn and ask what would be easier, but his hands covered mine, trapping them against the curve of the chair, and he suddenly started pressing that tight part of him against my ass.
I'd said he pantomimed sex before, but I'd been wrong, because he was doing it now.
He thrust against the back of my body, with his hands trapping mine against the chair, and his body curved over me. With my legs together he wasn't brushing up against anything that Requiem had hurt. With my legs together, the angle would have been wrong if we were actually trying to have sex, but that wasn't what the show was about. As he'd said hours ago, it was an illusion, the illusion that they could have him. The illusion that he could bring someone up on stage and have them in front of everyone else.
The cloth of the G-string was satiny, but what lay inside that satin was hard and firm, and all I could think of was earlier in my office. Of the feel of him inside of me for real. Of him pushed inside me as far as he could go, of him sliding in and out of my body, of him stroking over that spot inside me, of the feel of him so careful, so delicate, so very strong, as he moved inside me. My imagination was suddenly not my friend. Because between one breath and another, the memory overwhelmed me, and suddenly that heavy warmth spread from low in my body to spill over my skin in a dance of goosebumps. I spasmed against the chair, against Nathaniel's body. His body was still bent over mine, and the weight of him rode me as I spasmed, as I orgasmed. It was a small one, no screaming, no clawing, just that helpless spasming, and not much of that by my standards.
He whispered against the side of my face, his breath almost hot. "Anita..."
But the next moment there was movement behind us, I felt it like a disturbance of air, and there was a sound I didn't know, and a sharp sound of something heavy hitting flesh. Nathaniel's body reacted to the blow, spasmed, almost like mine had. A second blow came, and this time words, Jean-Claude's voice, "Bad cat, very bad cat. Away from her bad cat, away from her."
Nathaniel's body responded to every blow, almost like it was a miniature orgasm. His body tightened around me, as if the feel of my body next to him while Jean-Claude whipped him was something he didn't want to lose. But Jean-Claude drove him off, with a joking voice, and Nathaniel made sure my skirt was in place before he let Jean-Claude drive him across the stage.
I was left holding the chair, so weak-kneed I didn't trust myself to move yet. Jean-Claude had a small many-tailed whip in his hand. Nathaniel crouched and crawled across the stage, and Jean-Claude beat him. It was like an odd version of an old-time lion tamer act, except the chair served an entirely different purpose.
"You are a very bad kitty-cat, very bad. How do we punish our bad kitty?" For a second I thought he was asking me, but he wasn't. The women around the stage started to chant, "Tie him up, tie him up, tie him up."
Jean-Claude smiled, as if that had never occurred to him, but what a good idea it was. At a gesture from him, chains descended from the ceiling. I hadn't noticed them in the welter of lights and cables. Oh, hell, I hadn't even looked up.
Two bare-chested waiters, wearing only leather pants, came up on stage and dragged Nathaniel to his feet. They chained his arms spread wide, wrists above his head.
Jean-Claude came to me, walking so that his hips rolled more than they should have. He touched my arm and whispered, with a smile that did not match the words, "Are you alright, ma petite? "
I nodded and whispered, because I knew he'd hear me. "Flashback."
"Not as strong as those that our Asher can give."
I shook my head.
"Interesting," he said, "are you well enough to finish this show?"
"I promised," I said.
His smile widened, and his voice was suddenly that room-filling, jolly sound, "Now, you may help us punish our bad kitty. You may make him pay for taking liberties." I got a shadow of what he was doing to the audience. When he said "punish," it was a sharp pull on the body; "bad kitty" made you think of very naughty things; "pay," and more money hit the stage; "liberties" had a lascivious lilt to it that made the audience do that nervous giggle, like what they were thinking was worse than anything they'd seen tonight.
I just nodded and let him take my hand. That one touch was both a mistake and a help. It made me feel less shaky, but it also opened me to him more. Touching just his hand was more distracting than touching so much more on most men. He led me a little dazed across the stage, until we were standing behind Nathaniel, facing the bareness of the back of his body.
Jea
n-Claude let go of my hand and went to him. He touched the bare back. "You may hit him here"—his hand slid down Nathaniel's back to his buttocks—"or here. He has been a bad kitty, but we don't want to damage him. He is far too pretty for that."
The audience agreed with him, most of them.
Jean-Claude handed the whip toward me. "I don't know how to use a whip."
"First, it is a what, my sweets?"
Most of the women yelled, "Flogger!"
"And second, it would be my pleasure ," and that one word slithered over my skin, and apparently over the other women as well, for they squealed, "to show you just how it works." And every word seemed darker, more suggestive than it should have.
He tried to show me first by simply using it on Nathaniel. He made the heavy leather tails blur and blossom against Nathaniel's skin. Nathaniel reacted to every blow with a spasm that went from his fingers to his toes and everything in between. I could see enough of his face to know that those closed eyes and parted lips weren't from pain. Jean-Claude whipped Nathaniel, or I guess flogged him, until his skin was pink in places and the stage was littered with money at their feet.
He leaned close to Nathaniel's face, said something, and Nathaniel said something back, then Jean-Claude turned to me. He held the flogger out again. "He's such a bad kitty."
I shook my head.
"Shall I show her how it's done?" he asked the audience, and they yelled louder, and I wished I'd just taken the damn thing and tried, but too late now.
He put the flogger in my hand and pressed his body against the back of mine, with one arm around my waist and the other hand on the hand that held the flogger. It was the way lecherous men stand when they try to teach you how to golf or swing a bat. He swung my arm back and tried to make me give that sharp crack against Nathaniel's body, but it wasn't sharp, it was sort of flabby.
Incubus Dreams ab-12 Page 45
